London Stank So Bad Parliament Nearly Fled
In the summer of 1858 the Thames produced such a magnificent river of sewage that Parliament shut its windows, people gagged in bowler hats, and Britain finally built a proper sewer system.Read More 
They Wore Electricity Like Jewellery
Victorians looped little galvanic chains around their limbs and declared a polite tingle to be medical progress.Read More 
Ether Frolics: Proper Victorian Party Drugs
Victorians politely inhaled ether at parlour parties and called it entertainment - like tea, but with hallucinations and genteel panic.Read More 
They Ate Arsenic For a Pretty Face, Honestly
Victorian ladies popped arsenic tonics and 'complexion wafers' to look pale and flawless, then wondered why their teeth fell out and their skin joked back.Read More 
They Bound Books In Human Skin, Proper Mad
Victorians sometimes literally used human skin to bind books and a few are still in libraries - disgusting and oddly useful.Read More 
They Really Put Waterloo In Your Mouth
In the Victorian era respectable smiles were sometimes built from other peoples teeth-often nicked from battlefields and graves-and nobody used the word 'awkward' with sufficient gravitas.Read More 
How Photographers Sold You Ghosts and Everyone Took the Money
A quickly fashionable Victorian business model: take a portrait, add a faint pallor, bill a grieving family for their dearly departed's cameo and then argue about the receipts in court.Read More 
Victorians Unwrapped Mummies For Fun
They hosted drawing-room soires where the evening's entertainment was peeling ancient bandages off a corpse and calling it science.Read More 
They Literally Blew Smoke Up People
Victorian rescuers had a toolkit that included bellows, a tobacco plug, and a plan to blow smoke into a drowning person's rectum - and yes, they absolutely meant business.Read More 
Knocker-Ups: Victorians Paid People To Tap Your Window
Before alarm clocks were cheap, Victorians hired 'knocker-ups' who banged on windows, poked curtains with long poles or even shot dried peas to wake factory hands.Read More 